


for who would inhabit this bleak world alone?

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: Love and Other Fairytales [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Burning, Drowning, Frostbite, Gen, Hanging, Immortality, Knives, Non-graphic death, Spiders, Villain!Deceit, brief mentions of, but friendly ones, casual mentions of murder, disregard for mortal life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 09:05:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16531550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: who is this human and why is she talking to him?OrVirgil makes a friend, whether he likes it or not.





	for who would inhabit this bleak world alone?

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from The Last Rose Of Summer by Thomas Moore, and the song in the story is Die Gedanken Sind Frei, a German folk song.

“I can hear you, you snake,”

“Wasn’t trying to be quiet, Virgil,”

Virgil didn’t even open his eyes, just kicked his foot out against the tree, setting his web-hammock swinging again. Of course his brother had to come and shatter the peace of his clearing, just when Virgil had gotten his web just the way he liked it and gotten comfortable, as well as rub it in that he knew Virgil’s name when Virgil didn’t know his.

“I’m bored,” said his brother after a moment.

“I don’t care,”

“I want to go terrorize the humans,”

“You always want to terrorize humans, and I still don’t care,”

His brother hissed, syllabant and drawn out.

Virgil tried not to smirk.

His brother was, hands down, the most irritating thing in the entire forest. Needlessly cruel, obnoxiously self-absorbed, and convinced he was the greatest thing to grace the earth in a thousand years. Virgil wondered occasionally how they were even related.

It was a testament to how much he cared about Mother that Virgil hadn’t just killed him out of sheer frustration by now.

“I don’t see why everybody has to play nice with the mortals just because you’re afraid of them,”

Virgil opened one eye and looked down at him with all the disdain he could muster.

“So, what I’m hearing, is you  _want_  one of the humans horses to kick you in the face? With all that cursed metal nailed to it? You want a big hoof-print burn somewhere to match the one on your face?”

His brother scowled, raising his hand automatically to the scar that spanned the left side of his face. He sneered.

“I’m just saying, I don’t see why  _your_  cowardice has to confine the rest of us-”

Virgil twisted out of the hammock and landed directly in front of his brother, glaring.

“My forest, my rules. Leave the humans alone and  _shut up about it_ ,”

His brother sneered like he was going to say something back, but he was cut off by a distant sound.

One of Virgil’s sisters spun down on a bit of thread, whispering.

“ _A human,_ ” she hummed, her spindly little legs finding purchase on the hand he held out for her, “ _A girl, far away from the village. Why does she wander so far? She is lost or foolish,”_

“The latter, most likely,” he replied, because as the human came closer he could hear her  _singing_. She seemed totally unconcerned with her whereabouts or the volume of her voice. He couldn’t see her yet, but he could hear her loud and clear. Most humans who came this deep into the forest were on the verge of tears by this point.

And this one was singing.

Virgil suddenly felt like he was going to have a very long day.

“ _And if I am thrown into the darkest dungeon, all these are futile works,_ ” her voice rang, cutting through the calm quiet of the forest. “ _Because my thoughts tear all gates and walls apart,-”_

“She’s trespassing,” hissed his brother, “We should kill her for her presumption,”

“Always with the killing with you,” muttered Virgil. “It isn’t like we have a front door she broke down,”

“She should know better,”

Patience too thin to continue putting up with his brothers cruelty, Virgil snapped.

“ _You_  should know better than to keep  _questioning_  me. When you’re the eldest son you can do whatever you damn well want, but you’re  _not_ , so  _shut up_ ,”

His brother made a furious, bitter expression before scoffing and walking in the opposite direction of the human.

“Fine; you deal with her. And when she drives you to kill her anyway I’ll be delighted to say I told you so,”

Virgil rolled his eyes. His brother loved his theatrics. He’d be over it in a few moons.

Virgil moved over another branch, keeping out of the humans sight as she came into view. She was still singing.

“- _And so I will renounce my sorrows forever, and never again will torture myself with whimsy. I_ _n_ _one’s heart, one can always laugh and joke, and think_ -”

She cut herself off, perking up like a hound on a scent. Then, much to Virgil’s surprise, she turned and looked directly at him.

“Hello!” she called through the trees.

Virgil couldn’t help it; he bolted.

“Hey! Wait!”

It wasn’t like Virgil was  _scared_. What could she do to him, really? Even if she had anything cursed on her, Virgil was powerful enough that it wouldn’t hurt for too long. So no, not scared. He just didn’t feel like dealing with her.

As he dashed through the treetops, he heard the giggling of his sisters around him.

 _Always so shy,_ they teased,  _running from company_.

Virgil ignored them and the slight pinpricks of heat on his face.

It should have been easy to outrun her – he was in the treetops and she was barred by the detritus on the forest floor. But nothing she came across seemed to slow her down, whether she ducked under it or hurdled it like it was nothing.

Eventually he stopped, and when she skidded into view, her hair and skirts were in disarray but she was barely breathing hard.

“Well that was rude,” she said, blowing her hair out of her face.

Virgil stared at her. He’d been alive a long time, and not once in all those years had a human ever been brave enough to call him rude.

Or stupid enough.

Maybe it’s the same thing.

“I just wanted to ask for directions,” she said calmly, “Before you took off like a hunted deer. Can you point me in the direction of the human village,  _Herr Spinne_?”

Warily, he nodded.

She waited a moment, then rolled her eyes.

“Let me correct myself; will you,  _Herr Spinne_ , please tell me which direction the human village that I am from is?”

Now he was getting irritated. Who exactly did this human think she was?

He crossed his arms and scowled at her.

“Can you not speak?” she said impatiently, “Have you taken a vow of silence like a monk?”

“I can speak,” Virgil snapped, “And for someone who complains  _I’m_ rude, you certainly don’t have many manners yourself,”

“He speaks!” she cried, “A miracle. I’ll have you know, it’s a bit hard to be polite to someone imitating a stump,”

“Are you suicidal, or are all humans this stupid?”

“Well, I like to think I’m a little tougher than most humans,” she offered, “And I certainly don’t think I’m in danger from the likes of  _you_ ,”

“I’m the Spider Prince,” he said flatly, “This is my forest,”

She grinned.

“I know exactly who you are. Point stands,”

At that point, he probably  _should_ have killed her. Just on principle.

“Why?” he said, doing his best to look bored.

She just kept smiling. “Well, I’m a witch, of course,”

He stared.

“A witch,” he deadpanned.

She nodded.

He very deliberately looked at her muddy, tattered shoes, her rumpled, fraying dress and her unkempt black hair, finally settling on her face. While he wasn’t very sure how humans aged, this one was clearly barely more than a child.

“I hope you don’t mind if I’m not trembling in fear,”

She laughed then.

“Oh well. Regardless, I need to get home. And you’re obviously not going to help me, so I must bid you goodbye,  _Bruderspinne;_ you and your vow of silence,”

“Who said you were allowed to leave?” he said, as menacingly as he could.

“I wasn’t asking!” she called over her shoulder, completely unconcerned as she started to pick her way back through the forest.

“ _Thoughts are free, who can guess them?,”_  she began to sing again as she disappeared into the trees. “ _T_ _hey fly like night shadows, no person can know them…_ ”

Her voice faded, and as much as he really,  _really_ , ought to do something – his brother was, technically, right, she was trespassing and, frankly, obnoxious – but mostly he just wanted to roll his eyes and forget about the whole ordeal.

Maybe he  _was_  a little too soft on the humans.

They were just so… pitiful wasn’t quite right, but he couldn’t think of anything better. They were like little sheep, nervous and easily led, and no matter how much every other fae in the forest complained about it he just could bring himself to let them harass them.

But he couldn’t  _say_  that, of course. How pathetically Summer of him, to find them sad and maybe a little amusing rather than irritating and presumptuous. No amount of fear could bring him back from  _that._

He meandered his way back to his clearing. He climbed back up into his hammock and set it swinging once more with his foot.

He heard the humming of his mother in the back of his mind and reached back out, listening.

_Human, strange, smells-like-fire. Lost? Not afraid, why?_

_She’s just odd, I think,_  he pondered, curling his fingers in the shadow beneath him, S _he’ll go back to the village and forget about it or she’ll die and you can have her. I don’t think it matters much._

Mother’s curiosity faded, and she settled back down into the bone-deep, echoing hum she usually had.

Virgil had been born to the shadows of the forest itself; from the dark underneath the densest trees to the dappled shadows beneath the bramble bushes, Virgil’s mother was in all of them. He was fear given form.

He wasn’t sure if his brother could speak to their mother the way he could; they were not prone to discussing anything other than how much they loathed one another.

Virgil leaned back in his hammock, and as he slipped into a doze, wondered if he was going to come across the human girls body later.

He did wonder, just a bit, why the thought left him feeling oddly melancholy.

* * *

Virgil stared at the final section of his web like it had personally offended him.

It looked wrong, and while he was not as obsessed with aesthetics as some other fae he knew, if he didn’t get it right it was going to drive him insane.

He took several steps to the side, wondering if it was the angle that was making the weave look off. He tilted his head, eyeing the pattern critically.

“You dropped a stitch over there,”

Virgil yelped in a distinctly undignified way, but he recovered fast enough that the human girl had to dive out of the way of the jagged silver knife he sent flying in her direction.

“ _Really_?” she demanded, “are you always this rude? Ridiculous. if I threw knives at every guest that knocked on  _my_  door I’d never get company again,”

She rearranged her skirts angrily.

"Has it occurred to you,” he snarled, “that maybe I don’t  _want_  your  _blasted_  company?

"What a charmer,” she said dryly.

They stared at each other, neither one willing to give in.

“You really did drop a stitch,” she said conversationally, “Back there, by the blackberry bushes. It’s thrown off your whole line,”

“Because you know  _so much_  about weaving webs, obviously,” said Virgil, resisting the urge to look where she was indicating,”

“I  _knit_ ,” she deadpanned, “And by the looks of it I’m better at it than you are,”

Virgil avoided the spot she indicated for a grand total of 4 seconds before snarling and stalking over to where he had, in fact, dropped a stitch.

She didn’t say anything, but Virgil could feel her radiating smugness.

"See? not so hard to listen to me, is it?”

“Every time you open your mouth I want to kill you more, so by all means keep talking,”

The human had the audacity to laugh.

“I have no doubt you’ll make some horrible example of me,” she said through her giggles. “what have you got? Will I dance until I wear out the soles of my shoes? Will you turn me to stone until someone calls my true name?”

“You are incredibly insolent and utterly obnoxious,”

“Because you are just a picture of decorum and grace yourself,”

“What do you  _want_?” Virgil demanded, “A boon? A gift? Some kind of blessing? Or are you just content to mock me until I snap and Put a knife in your throat?”

“You wont kill me and we both know it,” She said smugly, perching on a log and grinning.

“Oh,  _do_  share your thought process there,”

“You’re bored,” she said simply, “And I know what bored looks like, because I’m  _always_  bored. And since you’re the most interesting thing I’ve found in this forest, we’re each other’s best bet at  _not_  being bored,”

Virgil really wanted to deny that and was really,  _really_  irritated that he couldn’t.

“I’m not a jester,” he said scathingly, “I’m not going to entertain you,”

“Too late,” she sang.

Virgil pulled out another knife and flipped it several times. “You continue to make it very hard not to kill you,”

She grinned, and he had to admit, he’d never seen a human smile with quite so many teeth.

“So you keep saying,” she said, “But you missed the first time. I like my odds,”

* * *

The human girl was like a mushroom circle. One second a space would be empty, and the next, there she was.

Nothing he said scared her. Nothing he  _did_  scared her, including using her for various kinds of target practice. He’d even  _bit_ her, just once, and if he’d had a mind to actually use any venom she’d be dead twice over.

But.

Well, he  _hadn’t_ had a mind to use any venom.

She was… entertaining wasn’t the right word. He was far too frustrated to consider himself amused. Challenging, he decided. He was the ruler of the forest and every fae in it knew better than to cross him. No human would even dare.

Except one human, who seemed to find him no more intimidating than she would any human boy her own age. She sought him out tirelessly, no matter where he went in the forest. Somehow she kept finding him, and it wasn’t long before “finding him” turned into “dragging him into her ridiculous shenanigans”

“Do you keep track of the humans in the village?” she said one morning, laying on her back next to a mulberry bush and eating the fruit off of it by the handful.

“Why on earth would I care?” said Virgil flatly, where he was picking at a piece of wood with a knife, trying to decide what he wanted to carve it into.

“I just mean do you know their faces?”

“Only yours,” he said, and then bit his tongue at even that small admission.

“Well never mind then,” she said loftily, “I guess I’ll just have to get up to mischief by myself,”

Virgil refused to rise to her bait. He was  _gentry_ , not some hobgoblin looking to spoil milk. He was not going to be taken in by some vague promise of amusement.

He lasted less than five minutes.

“…What kind of mischief?” he said, trying to sound as disinterested as possible.

She turned, grinning wildly. “Mr. Radabough keeps getting grabby with the girls in the market, so I’m going to burn down his barn,”

Virgil choked, trying desperately to smother his laugh.

“Not going to work your way up to that?”

“I am not a patient person,” she said, scrambling to her feet, “And he’s very rude,”

“ _You’re_  very rude,”

“I’m not rude, I’m brisk, ” she said primly, “You’re rude, but only because you don’t know better,”

“I’m sure someday I’m going to snap and make a coat out of you,”

“Oh, for the love of Eve,” she huffed, rolling her eyes. She leaned down, and stupidly,  _suicidally_  stupidly, grabbed him by the sleeve.

“You’re a terrible liar,  _Bruderspinne_ ,” she laughed, “Stop pretending to hate me and come help me commit arson,”

He should kill her. He really,  _really_  should kill her.

“I am not rescuing you if you get stuck inside the damn thing,”

She laughed, yanked him to his feet, and took off at a dead sprint.

* * *

So Virgil had given up on keeping his distance from the human.

Nobody had said anything, but it was no secret that the other fae had started giving him sidelong glances, wondering why on earth he was spending so much time getting into trouble with a random mortal.

But Virgil couldn’t really bring himself to care. He’d never  _not_  been under scrutiny, never had someone who wasn’t either afraid of him or trying to get something out of him. “Friends” were a bit of a foreign concept. A  _human_  concept.

But she was funny, in a sharp, snapping kind of way, and she wasn’t even the slightest bit afraid of him.  Almost insultingly so.

She was almost always with him, but on this particular day the snow had been coming down heavy enough that he knew she wouldn’t be. At least not until it stopped actively snowing and she could trudge through the knee deep drifts like an idiot.

“You know,” drawled his brother’s voice from the shadows, “It’s not like you to play with your food like this. You normally like to just get it over with,”

Virgil didn’t answer, and tried to calm the anger that rose in response.

“What are you talking about now?” he said flatly.

“Your little pet mortal,” said his brother, “How long do you plan on drawing it out?”

“What I’m doing with the human is, shockingly, none of your business,”

“So you’re not planning on eating her? Does that mean I can?”

Virgil was across the clearing in a second, his hand around his brother’s throat.

“ _ **Don’t touch her**_ _,”_

There was a second of total silence, and Virgil realized his mistake as a slow smile spread across his brother’s face. Caring was a weakness, and Virgil had just lit his up like a lantern.

“You have my word,” his brother purred, “That I will never lay a hand on your dear little human,”

“I’m not an idiot,” hissed Virgil, “Your word means nothing and we both know it,”

“I’m not any more capable of lying than you are,” his brother said with a slight laugh.

“ _ **Do I seem like I find this funny,”**_ snarled Virgil.

“Relax,” his brother placated, “Why would I bother? And it is a  _little_ funny. After all, I don’t really have to do anything. You’ve already done all the damage yourself,”

Virgil shook him furiously.

“What are you talking about?”

His brother rolled his eyes, taking on the air of someone who was explaining something incredibly simple to a moron.

“Your human is mortal. She’s with you now, and I’m sure you’re both having a lovely time,”

He smiled again then, slow and nasty

“But you don’t actually  _have_  that much time, do you?”

Virgil froze.

“She’s going to change. Humans are fickle and petty – their minds and opinions change from year to year, even moment to moment. They are ever-shifting creatures. Slowly at first, and you won’t notice. And one day you will turn your head away from her for a second and she will be different; leave for a season and you will find another person entirely,”

“Shut up,” said Virgil, but his voice was weak even to his own ears.

His brother’s smile grew wider still.

“And then, one day, you will leave her side – for a week, for a day, for even a moment – and come back to a cold grave,”

Virgil dropped him, his stomach churning and his hands shaking.

“I don’t have to do  _anything_ , to you or your human,” cooed his brother mockingly.

“You already broke your own heart,  _all by yourself,_ ”

* * *

Virgil tried very hard not to think about what his brother had said. She was young – she was healthy and strong and stubborn and she would  _not_  die any time soon, and what she couldn’t handle herself Virgil would handle  _for_  her. He had one friend in the world and the power of every fear the forest contained – he could surely keep one flighty human alive.

So, of course, the first thing she did was do her level best to be  _very dead_.

He nearly missed it – if he hadn’t been so used to listening for her, so attuned to her voice, he never would have heard the scuffle. He’d only heard the sound of something heavy being dragged and resolved to ignore it.

But then he’d heard her shout – her voice was muffled – was she _gagged?_

His mind’s eye flooding with images of his friend, bound and being dragged like a- like a slain  _boar_ , like some kind of  _animal_ \- Virgil snapped to his feet and moved silently through the treetops towards her voice.

 _An ogre_ , he thought, one he’d seen before. A brute called Bracken that was one of the most vocal complainers about Virgil’s restrictions on harassing the humans. Catching a glimpse of the hulking form through the sparse tree branches, Virgil also saw a rudimentary campsite, some turned over logs and a rotting stump. But the fire in the middle was anything but rudimentary, waist high and roaring.

And before Virgil could move any closer, Bracken heaved a squirming, shrieking human over his shoulder and tossed it in the fire.

“ _ **No!**_ ”

Braken was dead from a blade to the throat before he’d raised his head at Virgil’s shout, but the moments it took Virgil to make it to the clearing felt like centuries.

He hesitated for only a second before taking a breath, bracing himself for what was surely going to be an incredibly painful experience, and reaching into the flames.

Only for his hand to be batted angrily away.

Virgil watched, stunned, as she rolled over and glared at him, seeming totally unconcerned by the fact that she was sitting in the middle of a roaring fire.

She made a frustrated noise and rolled out of the cinders into the mud. When Virgil continued to gape at her she made it again and gestured impatiently with her bound hands.

“Oh,” said Virgil dumbly, fumbling for another blade and cutting her wrists free.

The first thing she did was yank the gag out of her mouth.

“Thank you  _very_  much,” she said acidly, “Very kind of you to cut me lose rather than just stare like a startled deer,”

She started in on the ties around her ankles, and Virgil was still mostly frozen in shock.

“Y-your clothes are still on fire,” he said, his voice quiet and strained.

“Really,  _Bruderspinne_ , I hadn’t noticed,”

She stood then, patting out the flames on her smoldering skirt with her bare hands, before planting them on her hips and pinning him with her most unimpressed stare.

“So let me make sure I understand what just happened. You, a  _Winter Court faerie_ , saw me,  _a witch_ , in a fire, and your  _brilliant_  plan was to  _reach in?”_

Virgil had no idea what kind of face he might be making. She didn’t look impressed.

“You- you’re  _actually_  a witch?”

She stared at him incredulously.

“I told you that!”

“I thought you were bluffing so I wouldn’t kill you!” replied Virgil, and he couldn’t even be embarrassed at how his voice was cracking, “And what does that have to do with you being- being fireproof?”

“Witches don’t burn,” she said as though this was common knowledge, “I can’t drown either, or be hanged. They tried to get my mother back in Germany and she just floated like bobber on water, it was hilarious,”

She chuckled at the memory and shook her head.

“I can’t believe this hasn’t come up at all til now, are you  _sure_  you didn’t know?” she laughed.

Virgil’s hands were still shaking, and she must have seen something in his face, because her smile started to ebb.

“…  _Bruderspinne?_ ” she said hesitantly.

Virgil drew in a shaky breath and in a single fluid motion stood from his crouched position and threw his arms around her.

She froze, her hands flailing slightly. They hovered above his back.

“ _Bruderspinne_  are you okay?” she said, baffled.

“I thought you were dead,” he said weakly, “Bracken threw you in the fire and I killed him but I knew it was too late, humans are so  _fragile_ , I thought you were already dead-”

“Oh,  _Bruderspinne,_ it’s okay,” she said, finally understanding, bringing her arms down to settle at his ribs. “Oh, you really are secretly just as soft-hearted as they come, aren’t you? I’m fine, you worrywart there’s not a scratch on me,”

Virgil only tightened his hold.

She huffed.

“I’m  _fine_ ,” she insisted, knocking the sides of their heads together. “And you’re ruining both our reputations here

“Maybe I should turn you into a tree,” said Virgil, a little hysterically, “You cant get in trouble if you’re a tree.”

“And if someone comes to cut me down?” she laughed.

“I’ll kill them,”

“And if the forest burns to the ground, will you fight the fire?” she retorted.,“If I get struck by lightning, will you wrestle the storm? I am not like you,  _Bruderspinne_. I’m not going to live forever,”

As if he needed more reminders. As if it wasn’t going to be the only thing he could think about for the rest of her life and then mourn the rest of his.

She pulled back then, cupping his face and grinning “Besides, if I was a tree, who would tell you when you are being an idiot?”

Virgil laughed; a short, bitter thing.

She shifted, and Virgil realized that, fireproof or not, she was ankle deep in snow, in clothes that were full of singed holes, and wet besides from rolling in the mud. She was favoring her left leg; she must have hurt it when Bracken caught her.

“I’m taking you home,” he said, “Do you live in the village, or just near it?”

She snorted.

“Ah yes, the Spider Prince of the Winter Court is going to march through Wickhills to walk me to my house on the other side,”

“That’s what I  _said_ ,” Virgil snapped.

It seemed to dawn on her that he wasn’t joking.

“ _Really?_ ” she said disbelievingly. “You’re going to walk me past the villagers and the church and the  _blacksmith_  in broad daylight?”

“Would you rather I carry you?” he tried to say nastily, but when it came out of his mouth it just sounded incredibly, heart-wrenchingly earnest.

She stared at him, at a loss for words.

Her eyes grew shiny, and then she smiled as wide as he’d ever seen.

“My name is Greta,” she said.

Virgil jerked, stunned.

“I- what?”

“Greta,” she said, still grinning, “My name. The name my mother gave me, my name is Greta,”

“Have you lost your  _mind_ , shut  _up,”_ Virgil hissed.

A name had power; a name was  _valuable_. It was idiotic for a human to just- give it away to a fae, especially one as powerful as Virgil, no matter how long they’d known each other. He could be tricking her, or playing some kind of game, she had no way of knowing his intentions. It was far an above the stupidest thing she could have done.

“My name is Margareta Adelheid Baumgartener,” she said firmly, and Virgil’s chest spasmed with terror -  her full name, she was so  _stupid_ , how had she not been killed before he’d even met her? - and some other emotion he couldn’t identify. Gratitude, maybe?

“It is a gift for my friend,” Greta continued.

“ _Don’t_ ,” said Virgil weakly, “You don’t know what you’re doing,”

“I know very well what I’m doing,” Greta said, reaching out and squeezing his arm. “A gift for my friend, who I love more than anyone else. Who better to keep the secret of my name safe than the brother of my heart?”

“You’re so  _stupid_ ,” said Virgil wetly.

But he laughed and embraced her again anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> if you were hoping to learn how Virgil got in that casket i am truly sorry to disappoint. we'll get there i promise.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] for who would inhabit this bleak world alone?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19408165) by [GoLBPodfics (GodOfLaundryBaskets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfLaundryBaskets/pseuds/GoLBPodfics)




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